"Other" money in the ward budget and refunds?

Last night I found that one of our youth that had already paid for scout camp, was no longer going to scout camp. They requested a refund of the money they had paid for scout camp.

I went and looked up the refund policy and found that money like this was in fact refundable ( because it is not a charitable contribution ). However what I found was that it seems the money should be refunded from the "other" account.

When we get donations for scout camp we have put them in the young men budget. Not in the "other" account.

Can I issue a refund from the young men budget?

Or do I need to go back to the donation originally made and change it to be into the "other" account? (And if I do this should I do it with all the scout camp donations?)

Vaccano wrote:I went and looked up the refund policy and found that money like this was in fact refundable ( because it is not a charitable contribution ). However what I found was that it seems the money should be refunded from the "other" account.

That is correct.

Vaccano wrote:When we get donations for scout camp we have put them in the young men budget. Not in the "other" account.

Depositing donations into a budget account is almost always prohibited. The exceptions are very few: 1) If money was paid from the budget account and there was a refund for part or all of the expense, the refund should be deposited back to the same budget, 2) if an advance was made from a budget account, any excess should be returned to the same budget account or 3) if another unit is paying part of an expense that is otherwise coming from budget, then the payment from the other unit should be placed in the budget account.

Vaccano wrote:Can I issue a refund from the young men budget?

I wouldn't recommend it.

Vaccano wrote:Or do I need to go back to the donation originally made and change it to be into the "other" account?

This would be more appropriate.

Vaccano wrote: (And if I do this should I do it with all the scout camp donations?)

I would. If you've already paid any camp expenses from the budget you may also need to change the category on those accounts to the 'other' account. However, if expenses exceed how much is paid by the scouts some expenses may have to still come from budget. In order to use up all the 'other' account funds you may need to split an expense between 'other' and budget.

You probably already saw it in your research but the support page The "Other" Category is a valuable resource on how to handle funds for camps and similar activities.

The idea of the "Other" account is to keep non-chartable donations separate from the ward budget to simplify the auditing process. In this case it makes sure that all the money given for camp goes toward the camp and no excess is going to the general budget or non-camp expenses.